I have been wanting to write about this for the longest time, and today seems just the perfect day to do so.

23rd November, 2010. A day, which I had marked in my calendars since months. A day, which I could not wait for. A day, when the most humane person I’ve known in my life would get married. A day, her world would change. A day, which turned out to be as ordinary and as insignificant as any other day.

Yes, the marriage was called-off.

And yes, it is not pitiful. In fact, if anything, it is much the opposite. For, she was the one who called it off.

Yes, a girl who held no expectations from people, was ever willing to adjust, has the sweetest nature one could ever witness, and looks after her own – that very girl called off her own wedding.

I was neither happy, nor sad, when she told me of the cancellation about two months back. I was surprised. Simply surprised.

She is one person who has been my cushion for all matters pertaining to heart. Whether it is a tiny crush or a devouring limerence, a guy who looks hot or a guy who complimented me, a feeling that it’s love or a feeling that I’m loved, everything is reported to her, and her judgement is trusted. For, she puts the head in my heart, sense in my non-sense, and meanings in my mess. When I talk of my high expectations, she tells me of the imperfections. When I talk of the ideal, she tells me of reality. When I talk of what could have been, she tells me of what is and what can be. When I talk of the destination, she tells me of the journey. And above all, she wields a great deal of power over my cynicism. The world looks brighter, more hopeful and more cheerful when she tells me of it.

I’m a hardcore skeptic when it comes to love, relationships and men. For, I perpetually fear that the things I expect of all these three, I can never get. The knowledge of the fleeting human nature doesn’t let me put my guards down. I want my world to be a perfect place, without any problems, disputes and manipulations. And it is not a real world that I dream of. Most often than not, I write off my expectations, impossible to be met. More so, when I see people around me settling down for things/people way below their expectation levels. For, the ideal is not always real. Heck, it is not real, ever or always.

The same thing happened when she got hitched. It was an arranged match. She did not expect much of the boy, and he seemed a nice enough guy to her, to be wanting to spend the rest of her life with him. I was mighty intrigued at the workings of her head and heart, when she told me the age-old ‘you just get to know when it’s for real’.

But then, it was NOT for real. Something was amiss. It was not working out as she had ‘expected’ it to. For, not expecting anything also brings with it a set of expectations, albeit of a different nature altogether. The boy fitted the description of an eligible bachelor almost perfectly, the expectations were not there, there was no ‘problem’, so to speak. Yet, the relationship wasn’t working out. And it was happening with the girl who used to be so hopeful about it all. Oh, the irony!

The incident has left me wondering about the complexity of it all, once again. And I’m back to being a skeptic.

But she still doesn’t fail to tell me that the world is beautiful. That everything happens for the best. That things always end well, and if they don’t, it’s not the end yet. That whatever I expect, I’ll get it, because I deserve it.

2 thoughts on “Expectations and then some”

Being such a personal topic, it is difficult to comment on it without sharing personal experiences and perspectives.

To dream of love and to have high expectations from people you love is not new nor unreasonable. Though I believe, the notion of love is often depicted to an extreme in movies and romance novels- with them, people tend to expect more and anyone who believes that they are reality or even 80% of reality are in for a rude awakening. Most women search for the ideal guy “Mr Perfect” even though they consciously know that such a thing doesnt exist. You know your expectations (list of attributes) is too much and yet you refuse to settle for anything less than “true love” and the “ideal guy”. Why?? As in the example above, in this case, even a “perfect guy” didnt work. Even in my own experience, I met a person who fit my list- everything on it- he was tall, well educated, wasnt in software and was a very organised and nice person. It didnt click- we simply werent meant to be. No, I dont have any idea why it didnt work; it just didnt.

I too went through the motions- insisted on marrying someone who has “the spark”, believed that a sign from nature (lightning, thunderstorms, birds singing) would reveal to me the moment and person I fell in love. I too expected a lot from love and and very simplistically believed that ” a) if you’re in love nothing else matters and b) if something else matters, then you’re not in love. ”

Unconciously, I threw all of the above out the window when I met my husband-to-be. First, there was no sign from nature and second, love is not exclusive. There are a million things that constitute and support love that you cannot have one without the other. I, an ex-cynic and “non-mushy feminist”, am terribly embarassed that I had a long list of things that my ideal guy would do and would not do, and that was the first to go. All I can say is that the individual became more important than that list. Not that I tossed all my expectations aside but that quite a few of them grew insignificant when he arrived. The “spark” was the only one I followed through on. Ironically, he had more confidence than I did that we belonged together. Maybe I felt it too- just was too stubborn to admit it. We didnt know we were meant to be- we just felt that if we had to go through life with someone, we would like to do it with each other.

There were other things that didnt even make it to my list but that I later found I valued the most – a strong sense of humour, a communicative nature, and what I think most women want from men- the tendency to take their (women’s) moods, limitations, strengths, weakness, happiness into consideration before doing anything. To put it quite simple- to know that their opinion, thoughts, feelings are very important to him and yes, that he is listening.

There are no hard and fast rules as to what works and what doesnt. When people are unpredicatable, results are inconclusive.I believe it helps in knowing the person you spend your life with before you actually tie the knot. By knowing, it’s not just just stats- name, age, occupation, residence, likes, dislikes, family size, expectations etc. You need to get to know his/her moods, what are no-go areas, what makes him/her happy, what upsets them. A long engagement period and constant interaction is the key. A known devil is always preferred to an unknown one

i almost got confused looking at the comment whether i’d reached a whole new post 😀

ok now to the main thing…the thing i don’t understand about people is how they look at a scene and always manage to look at the dark side of the moon…

look at the situation you just recounted…a woman you’d thought would just about accept and adjust to anything…actually was smart enuf to put her foot down and correct things before the proverbial shit hit the proverbial roof!!!

things will always go wrong in life…a good life is not where you don’t have fuck ups…but one where u manage to fight thru them and come back up smiling 🙂